Fifty Years Ago: The Beginning of Nevada Bob's Bout with Cancer
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| Nevada Bob, telling it like it was. Photo: Gary Firstenberg |
My Ailment
In early summer of 1972, about a year or so into living on the river in our log cabin, I noticed a light brown color in my urine. rough the next couple of years, the light brown turned to blood-red streaks. I felt strong and healthy, but I was naturally concerned. I sought the advice of a urologist, Dr. Fisher, in Medford. He gave me a quick exam and told me the blood could come from a variety of sources and the fact that I appeared healthy and strong suggested to him that I really had nothing to be alarmed about. Leading up through 1974, I was completely unaware of what was to develop in my bladder.
After expounding on his business dealings for a bit he returns to the next phase of his cancer.
Meanwhile, the blood in my urine was now starting to clot and I experienced difficulty passing the blood clots. It was now autumn 1975. The blood clots were gradually getting larger, so I went back to Dr. Fisher to explain the clotting. He responded by ordering a dye test to find out what was taking place in my bladder. He discovered a
golf ball sized tumor and declared he was putting me in the hospital as soon as possible. He told me I was in serious trouble. But I told him I could not go into the hospital right now because I had just formed a corporation for my sawmill and that my partner had no experience. I would be risking serious money to proceed with hospitalization.
He shook his head in disbelief that I would put off this very necessary operation. Looking back on the circumstances, I was flirting with death, but I was more concerned with achieving success in my contract. I felt physically very strong and had no other adverse symptoms. This operation was to take place around the first week in October, but I reluctantly (at least in my mind) had to turn the operation down.
Bob's new sawmill venture was too important to him at the time, so he put off dealing with this "nuisance." As it turned out, Bob had a close encounter with a saw blade in their sawmill business, almost ripping open his chest and cutting off part of his hand. The wound required surgery, nevertheless, and while in the hospital it came out that he had this golf ball sized tumor in his bladder was now the size of a tennis ball. After his doctor removed it, he told Bob's wife, Carol, that he would have removed the bladder, too, but he saw so much cancer there that he knew Bob would be dead in six month.
"If he had removed my bladder," Bob says in his book, "I know I would have never lived to the ripe old age that I am now."
Carol was in the hospital during my operation. To make things more interesting she was nine months pregnant at the time. When I woke up and recovered from my operation, I told Carol she needed to go to a set of corrals and sort out calves that needed to be sold, and I sent two men to assist in this endeavor. After the calves were sorted Carol returned to our log cabin, but because the road was too wet to support our four-wheel station wagon, she had to ride her horse from the road up to the cabin. My parents in Seattle had been notified and were headed down to help, but before they arrived Carol felt serious birth pains, and so she and Monica had to ride horses all the way back from the cabin so Carol could drive herself to a hospital in Medford to deliver a baby. She went to a different hospital than the one I was staying in because she had to go to one with baby care.
I don’t know much about women, but I firmly believe there aren’t too many modern women that could have done what my Carol did that day.
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The story of how Bob defeated his cancer will be continued soon.
Or you can purchase his book here on Amazon.com.
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